The Internet has become a major vehicle for transportation of information regarding products and services. This arises because a person can obtain information on a variety of products and services, from different vendors, and without having to talk to a human operator whose job function is attempt to sell that product or service to the person.
The Internet has also become, to a lesser degree, a vehicle for transacting business, such as sales of products and services offered via the Internet. However, a problem frequently occurs when a person wishes to purchase a product. A person can visit the web site of a company and determine what product is to be bought, but there is generally no procedure whereby the person can communicate with another person to obtain further information about the product or discuss the purchase of the product. Thus, the person must accept the product with insufficient information, in which case the person may later wish to return the product, or the person must decline the purchase, in which case the company has lost a sale.
Still another problem occurs once the person has decided upon a product or service because the payment choices are usually limited to a major credit card, or a credit line previously established with the seller, both of which generally carry pre-arranged, fixed payment terms and interest rates. The person may want the product or service, but would be unable to comply with the payment terms, or may find the payment terms or interest rate unacceptable. This inflexibility of payment choices deters some people from making the purchase, or from making the purchase over the Internet. Thus, customer satisfaction is not achieved, and a sale is lost.
A different type of problem occurs when a person makes a purchase, or takes a loan, and is unable to make the payments as scheduled. That person quickly becomes non-responsive to letters demanding full payment immediately, and to telephone calls from collection agents demanding payment in accordance with non-negotiable terms. Thus, customer resentment rises, the debt is not easily collected, and future sales are lost.
Still another problem is that, to conduct some business transactions, the customer must view, approve and sign one or more documents. However, such documents may be confidential, and the company may not wish to simply publish those documents on a web site, or to simply send them to an e-mail address.
Further, many conventional sales or collection transactions are handled by call centers which employ numerous agents. These agents typically handle incoming calls from potential purchasers or debtors, and outgoing calls to those persons. When an agent has to spend time with a person proposing terms, discussing terms, waiting for the person to consider the terms, and obtaining approval for terms, the efficiency of the agent suffers, and the operating costs of the call center increase.